Friday night (July 19), Ross took home first place in the second round of the Community Enhancement Group's Wide World of Karaoke Cagematch, held at Lucky's Last Resort, beating out four other female contestants to secure one of the five coveted spots in the cycle's November finale, and a pot of well over $300 cash cast as votes by patrons of the event.

Ross, a member of the Paris High School class of 2009, currently resides in Paris, Mo. She works at Paris National Bank and JACS Restaurant. A member of her party during the event informed the MMI that Ross was not a professionally trained singer — that he knew nothing of her singing capabilities until another recent karaoke night.

After starting things out meekly with her opening song (a sweet, warbling cover of The Judds' "Why Not Me?"), though, Ross could have fooled her standing ovation with that soaring second showtune.

Ross' perfect pitch and inflection on each song carried her more than her showmanship during the night, as she (in contrast with last month's round one winner, Hannibal resident Raymond Finnell, who opened the show by strutting the room to his now- locally iconic version of Prince's "Purple Rain") remained fairly stationary before the capacity crowd, swaying to the beat of the song and once returning to her table for a drink mid-song.

Singing in the four slot, Ross sewed together an eclectic setlist of songs on the night, from karaoke staple "Black Velvet;" to Trisha Yearwood's "Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Love;" to her upbeat closing number, Alicia Bridges' international disco hit "I Love the Nightlife."

Here's how the rest of the show went down on Friday:

The lone returner from round one, Sarah Steele, opened the show (and each of the five rounds of competition Friday). Steele's creative twists on well-known staples from the first month gave way to a hard rock vocal mentality this go-around, as she vowed to stick to her roots. The Shelbina cake decorator and mother of two kicked the evening off with a roaring version of Drowning Pool's headbanger "Bodies" that appeared to leave the crowd divided, despite her superior showmanship. In many ways, Steele provided a foil to Ross' journey on the night, starting out with a loose (if somewhat pitchy) rock explosion that slowly dwinded down to more subdued, controllable versions of Danzig's "Mother" (a reprisal from last month, and arguably Steel's best performance in both instances) and KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree."

Representing an old-school twang that contrasted nicely on the back of Steele's hard growl, the competition's oldest contestant of the night, Cookie Tanner Lawrence, brought country music from the 80s to the present together. For her chosen opening round song, Lawrence chose "Break Down Here," by Julie Roberts. She dedicated her second number — Danielle Peck's "Findin' a Good Man" — to her significant other in the crowd, stating that she had, in fact, done so, as he looked around for who exactly she was speaking of. A pair of country ballads from LeAnn Womack and Sylvia in the middle rounds led to the fun of Lawrence's final performance of the night: Shelly West's humorous drinking ditty "Jose Cuervo."

Ironically enough, the youngest performer Friday followed Lawrence — Moberly's Madison Sharp. Sharp showed up slightly late for the competition, noting the fact that she had been sick all week. Her vocals early showed this, as she made her way through Gretchen Wilson's empowerment song "Redneck Woman," struggling on high notes at first. However, the further into the competition she went, the more she loosened up, and the better her performances became. Preceding Ross by one slot, Sharp had round two of the competition wrapped up with her near-flawless performance of the LeAnn Rimes staple "Blue." A later rendition of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" provided a promising finale from the 19-year-old Dollar General worker.

Always taking the mic after Ross on Friday was Mallory Lucas, an employee of Tim Jeffries, CPA. Given a difficult task (following the eventual winner), though, Lucas' powerful vocals helped her bridge the gap from country to rock to pop music seamlessly, as she worked the room and took on several crowd favorites that had the audience singing along with her. When asked by Stone what her opening performance would be, Lucas said that she did not know she was supposed to pick one, so she would be as surprised as the crowd. Finding out it was Carrie Underwood's "Good Girl" didn't seem to hurt her feelings much, though, as she worked her way through it, then into Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" following Ross' version of "Don't Rain on My Parade." Lucas' best quality was her ability to always connect with her covers' lyrics in some form moreso than her fellow competitors. Her best performance came in the form of Evanescence's "My Immortal," but she faltered a bit with an opportunity to separate herself in round five, sticking with a safe (and somewhat monotonous) Rihanna song — "Stay."

Following judge deliberations and the tabulation of dollar votes for each contestant in their respective event containers, Stone announced that the contest was a two-woman race between Ross and Sharp, just before revealing the prior as the night's winner.

Ross seemed generally surprised by the outcome, her lit smile returning to her face. It was asked that she reprise her Streisand song as her winning encore.

"Are you sure?" she asked

The crowd, undoubtedly, agreed.

Life was good for Taylor Ross. She should sing it.

And so, she did.

Nominations for round three of the competition, which will be held at Bud's Place in mid-August, are currently being taken through the end of this week. Voting for the participants in next month's contest will be next week.

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